I am starting a nonprofit involving farm animals. There will be a live camera for people to watch, but primarily my farm animals will be providing animal contact therapy to those in need. It would be nice for the people who want to check on their favorite farm animals to be able to watch on video; that part is easy to set up.
When I think of ways to raise money to help with my costs as so far it has all been out of pocket is a treat dispenser.
I would like to have several options; one that can dispense small biscuits that are all uniform in size with a bunch in stock, and a couple others with an apple or a fresh homemade donkey cookie.
It would need some sort of online system where the Arduino would let me tell people what treats are avalible and how much of a donation for each. It would also need to not charge people when it is empty, say, if she's already gotten the two apples she is allowed a week. For things like apples I would like to simply leave it empty when she's had her fill. For the smaller treats though, she can have up to 30 a week before it hurts her diet, so long as she's limited to 10 a day. For things like the apples, it could be a simple door that opens and drops them down.
I hope it would make people happy to donate to the animal they cuddle for therapy with the instant gratitude of watching the animal eat a homemade cookie. Oh, it would need to ring a bell to announce to the animal that it is getting a treat. It will need to be heard for 100 feet, a cute little bell like one rang to call people to the kitchen would be lovely.
I have never built anything more mechanical than I could with carpentry. It's the site integration that I am most unsure of where to start. Can anyone point me in the direction of how they would build and code this?
If I wanted to hire someone to code it for me and build the Arduino, how much would be fair? Where would I find someone to hire?
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